Q&A with Mark David Gerson

 

Mark David Gerson's books include the new novel The StarQuest and the book Birthing Your Book…Even If You Don’t Know What It’s About, now available in a 10th anniversary edition. He is also a coach and screenwriter.

 

Q: The StarQuest is the second in your Legend of Q'ntana series. What inspired the plot of this new novel?

 

A: Unlike many novelists (perhaps most novelists!), I never know my stories’ plots before I start writing. I just start writing — with no outline and no advance planning. Even when I think I have some sense of the plot, I’m inevitably wrong.

 

That was certainly the case with Sara’s Year and The Emmeline Papers, two of my Sara Stories series novels. With both books, I began my first day’s writing with a clear picture of what the story would be. Halfway through each of those initial sessions, the stories took off in radically different directions…what turned out to be radically more engaging and compelling directions!

 

With The StarQuest, though, I started with a blank slate. All I had as I sat down to write was the title and the certainty that the protagonist would be the daughter of The MoonQuest’s main character. I also knew that The StarQuest would take place before The MoonQuest…although I had no clue how that could possibly work. (It does.) That was it.

 

Every book I write, fiction and nonfiction, takes me on two distinct but linked journeys. The first is the exhilarating journey I travel with my characters as, together, we discover what the story is about. The second is more personal; it’s the emotional journey I experience through the writing process.

 

Through all the books I’ve written — now more than 20 — none has matched the crazy rollercoaster of a journey I lived with The StarQuest. The plot as it revealed itself to me through two aborted attempts at a first draft never seemed to make any sense, which is why I gave up on it twice. By the time I finally completed a first draft, on my third go, 11 years had passed!

It wasn’t until I was writing the third book in the series (The SunQuest, which will be out in late summer), that I discovered the source of at least some of my StarQuest difficulties. That’s when I realized that my earliest StarQuest drafts included scenes that belonged in The SunQuest.

 

That head start helped me finish my first draft of The SunQuest in a record six weeks!

 

One of the things that always astounds me about these Q’ntana books is how unintentionally relevant they turn out to be.

 

With The MoonQuest, a book about censorship and the brutal silencing of stories and storytellers, readers have never stopped asking me whether I wrote it as a social commentary on the times. I didn’t. I simply wrote the story that demanded to be written. Besides, I wrote it at a different time (I started it in 1994) and in a different country (Canada).

 

Until I began preparing this new edition of The StarQuest, I had never asked myself whether I could claim it to be as timelessly current as its predecessor. Once I did, though, I realized that it was the perfect story not only for this extraordinarily polarized US election year but for these chaotic, tumultuous times.

 

Why? Because it’s a story about reconciliation and heart-healing, a story that restores a natural, heartful order to a world that has tumbled into cruelty and disarray.

 

As with The MoonQuest, however, I didn’t write it with any political agenda, nor did I have any country or time period in mind. Rather, I wrote the story as it came to me, rarely knowing from one day to the next (or one word to the next) where it was carrying me.

 

In each of my writing workshops and books on writing, I insist that my books are smarter than I am. That The MoonQuest and The StarQuest have turned out to be stories not only for our time but for all time proves that!

 

Q: As you were writing the first novel, did you already have this second book in mind?

 

A: I had no idea as I set out to write what would become The MoonQuest that it would be part of a series.

 

Yet by the time I was nearly finished a first draft, I had a sense — more intuitive than anything else — that there could be two more books, even as I had no idea what they would be about or how they would fit into any kind of series.

 

All I knew was that they would be titled The StarQuest and The SunQuest. Later on, I realized that this Legend of Q’ntana series, as I came to call it, would comprise more than those two additional books.

 

Q: You also have another new book — a 10th anniversary release of your book Birthing Your Book…Even If You Don’t Know What It’s About. How does this new version differ from the previous one?

 

A: The short answer is lots! I’ve added new material — more inspiration and many new tips, techniques, exercises, and meditations — so much that that this new edition is nearly 30 percent longer. I have also shuffled some sections and many chapters for an enhanced book-birthing flow. In many ways, it’s a brand-new book!

Why did I take on this massive rebirth at a time when I have an ever-lengthening queue of new books I want to write?

 

Well, by early 2023, I had already revised and expanded my four other original books for writers — The Voice of the Muse, Organic Screenwriting, From Memory to Memoir and Writer’s Block Unblocked. Only Birthing Your Book had been left behind.

 

And once I realized that 2024 would mark the book’s 10th anniversary, I figured it was the perfect time to revisit it.

 

Once I did, I was astounded by how relevant the original edition still was, including to me. That’s because I was in the midst of birthing two new books of my own!

 

At the same time, I realized that through my writing and teaching experiences of the past decade, I had more to offer on the subject then I’d had when I first wrote the book.

 

Q: Do you feel your own writing has changed over the past decade?

 

A: God, I hope so! I’d like to think that each book-birthing journey I embark on not only expands my vision as a creative artist but contributes to my personal growth.

 

That’s because all my books — fiction and nonfiction alike — come from deep, vulnerable places within me. The act of releasing them onto the page and into the world is always transformative.

 

At a more practical level, each book — each draft of each book! — hones and refines my craft. If it didn’t, there would be no point in continuing.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: On the book side of things, I'm preparing The SunQuest (Book 3) for its release later this year, while at the same time working on The Lost Horse of Bryn Doon (Book 5) and starting to think about Book 6 (The Sorcerer of Bryn Doon). I also have a fourth book in The Sara Stories that I’m eager to get to.

 

More immediately, I’m getting ready for the New Living Expo in San Rafael, California, where I’ll be offering both a writing workshop (“Writing with Spirit”) and a free talk (“The Way of the Fool,” based on my Way of the Fool self-help book series). Both my events are on April 21, and I hope to see some of your readers there!

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: I recently recorded my first audiobook! The MoonQuest is available on Audible and Apple Books, and will be available on other platforms later this spring.

 

After Covid shut down my in-person workshops, I launched a project to convert all my writing workshops to video. That project is finally complete!

 

The videos page of my website now features nine downloadable workshops that cover a wide range of topics, from screenwriting and memoir-writing to journaling and using writing as a tool for personal healing. There’s even one based on the new edition of Birthing Your Book, and they’re all geared to both new and experienced writers.

 

Not only am I offering two April 21 events at the New Living Expo, I’ve set time aside on April 20 for a small number of individual in-person writing/creativity-coaching sessions, which are available to anyone who is within driving distance of the Bay Area.

 

Although they are discounted for the Expo, the sessions are open to all. Expo attendance isn’t required. (For details or to book a session, reach out via the contact page on my website.)

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with Mark David Gerson.